— Fiction —

Let’s Make a Baby

We should have sex and make a baby. After conducting multiple experiments, I am relatively convinced I have a lot of semen in my body. My experiments feeding it to my goldfish have yielded no pregnancies but that shouldn’t deter us. So—let’s have sex and make a baby. I will name the baby Herbert regardless of gender. And, don’t worry, I will take equal care of Herbert. When you are taking a nap or reading a book, I will take Herbert out for a walk. I will roll Herbert down a hill. I will hit Herbert with sticks I find in the backyard, but don’t worry because the hits will be applied softly—softly like, “Hey, just watch it, you know?” I will put Herbert in the garbage when you aren’t looking and then be like, “Hey, have you seen Herbert?” and you will panic but it will be funny to me because I’ll know where little Herbert is. I will give Herbert a bath and then roll him/her around on the ground to dry him/her off. When Herbert is bad I will spread jelly on his/her head and leave him/her out in the sun so the jelly dries on his/her head and becomes a jelly helmet. When you see the jelly helmet, you will say, “Why does Herbert have a jelly helmet on?” and I will respond, “S/he had to learn about it at some point, right, honey? Better from us than some kid at school.” I will put Herbert in a tree and you will say, “Oh, look, a little bird. Honey, I don’t want that little bird to poop on our driveway, could you shoot it with your BB gun? Make sure to hit it in the head so it dies.” “You sick fuck,” I will say. “You sick fuck. That’s our Herbert.” I will take Herbert out of the tree and cradle him/her. “You won’t hurt my baby,” I’ll say, then walk into town with Herbert to escape your tyranny. I will buy a sandwich at the store and offer to trade Herbert for the sandwich. Then I will think, “This is silly, I could make so many more sandwiches with Herbert. I am being a silly person. This is like that Biblical story about not giving a man a sandwich because he’ll never learn to make a sandwich out of his kid.” Let’s make a baby.